


The Vinegar Murders

by perch



Category: Vassalord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 04:32:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perch/pseuds/perch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charley and Rayflo investigate a series of mysterious murders where the victims appear wasted and covered in sores. This doesn't follow the current Vassalord plot, it's a throwaway story of a random case Charley investigates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Vinegar Murders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ivoryandhorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivoryandhorn/gifts).



**The Vinegar Murders**

  
**Prelude - The Vampire and the Reverend**

Charley's hands worked over the Rosary, his mouth forming the words of a Glory Be to the Father as he approached a decade and the contemplation of The Resurrection. The beads were worn and brittle under his hands, a string he'd had for well over a hundred years. His thoughts focused on God, while his stomach twisted with the thirst. He hadn't had a meal in six days and the hunger was gnawing at the back of his throat, distracting him from his work.

"Cherry," the long, dark man in the doorway drawled. "I haven't seen you with those in a long time."

"It's Charley," the big man said, distracted from his prayers by the sight of his Master and the object of his thirst. His shoulders twitched slightly as he stood up and pulled on his coat.

"Going out?"

"I have a new assignment."

"Don't you need to feed before you go," the man asked, shrugging open his shirt.. "It's not good to skip so many feedings and isn't this why you brought me with you?"

"Master," Charley hissed, his fangs sinking into the offered throat. His mechanical ear brushed the man's hair, and his artificial hands twisted the man's torso to the position that best suited his needs.

An hour later Charley guiltily hid his eyes from his Master's ravished body, bite marks peppered across the mans torso, arms and thighs.

"That's my Cherry," the man drawled, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his discarded clothes.

"It's Charley," he said again, adjusting his own clothes and picking up his cross spear.

"Have a safe night at work, vampire hunter," the man waved to him one handed, while he worked the lighter with his other hand. "Your meal is going to be waiting here for you, recovering."

"Good, I'll need a snack later," Charley said tonelessly, his expression eying the man like a side of beef before he walked out.

"So not cute," the man said, pulling a drag from his cigarette. A phone rang and he pulled it from his discarded pants. "Rayflo here."

  
**1\. Processing the Crime - Murder or Plague?**

The church had sent him on a new assignment, to uncover what was killing the local homeless, prostitutes and runaways in a subsection of Seattle. The victims, many of them teenagers and most of them women, in addition to being drained of blood had mysterious sores covering their wasted bodies.

Charley started by visiting the local homeless shelters, hospitals and parks, talking to vagrants to defiant to seek refuge, but too scared not to talk to a kindly, if odd looking Reverend. Finally he went to the latest crime scene, activating his sensors to scan the area more efficiently with his infrared and other detectors.

"Cherry the amazing cyborg, vampire hunting, reverend, vampire," Rayflo said, materializing from the swarm of bats.

"I thought you were recovering," Charley said.

"I got better," Rayflo offered. "So what's the case?"

"Several homeless, prostitutes and runaways drained of blood, almost all of them women."

"Classic fang-with-a-mother-obsession case?"

"All of them were covered in sores and several eye witnesses reported victims appearing to 'waste away' days to weeks before their deaths."

"Classic covering their tracks with an epidemic tactic."

"It's why the church called me in, to investigate before a city wide panic ensues."

"So where do we look next."

"There's a hospice that's nearby I haven't called in on yet," Charley said. "I was going there next, you can wait back in the hotel."

"It's boring there."

"Fine, just don't get in my way."

"Sure, sure Cherry."

"It's Charley."

  
**2\. The Vinegar Obsessed Suspect**

"Hello and welcome," the woman bowed before them. Charley bowed to her in turn, taking in his surroundings at the hospice.

"Thank you for your hospitality," he responded, "My name is Charles J. Chrishunds I've been asked by the Vatican to investigate the series of mysterious deaths in the area."

"My name is Leila Fang," the woman identified herself, "I work here at the hospice as a nurse."

"Is that vinegar?" Rayflo asked, pulling in from behind Charley and sniffing the air.

"Oh yes, I was just eating my dinner," Leila said.

"Please excuse us," Charley apologized.

"No, not at all, it can keep," Leila waved them by her gracefully. "Please, come in."

They toured the facilities, noting the large amount of patients with sores on their bodies.

"How long have you worked here Ms Fang?" Charley asked.

"It's been about a year or so," she responded, leading them down another corridor.

"And how long have the sores been showing up?"

"We've only been seeing severe cases in the last six months," she answered.

"And not-so-severe?"

"About a year or so, longer than I've been here I believe," she answered, glancing at them quickly.

Rayflo raised his eyebrows at Charley, but shook his head. Charley nodded to him.

"Thank you for your time Miss," Charley said.

"Anytime," she responded. "Do you need me to show you the way out?"

"No, we can find it ourselves. Good night."

Outside the two men looked at each other.

"Well, there's your suspect," Rayflo said, waving to the building behind them. "Only she doesn't feel like a vampire, just a woman obsessed with vinegar."

"Yes, I didn't sense anything from her either," Charley said. "I'll come back in the morning and speak to the other staff."

When he did, leaving Rayflo behind to sleep in his coffin, he was surprised to see Nurse Fang again, looking chipper and spry.

"Double shift," she explained, as she led him to meet the other day shift.

Later he explained what happened to Rayflo as he snacked on his neck.

"Maybe she had a powerful Master," Rayflo said, cradling Charley's head to him. "Or she's not a vampire at all."

"I got her address," Charley said, pulling the information out. "And an invitation for us to come by for dinner some time."

"That's my clever Cherry, daddy's good boy," Rayflo said, trying to pull him into his arms.

"It's Charley. She's got the night off tonight, but she's busy," he said, impaling Rayflo on his Iron Maiden.

"A little at home investigation then," Rayflo asked, grunting from the pain of the jagged metal entering his abdomen. "Nothing like some rough virgin foreplay."

Charley blushed and pulled away.

  
**3\. The Domicile of One Leila Fang**

"Phew, our enchanting Ms Fang does have a passion for vinegar," Rayflo said, glancing at the rows of herbs in bottles gracing the available spaces in her small house. He pulled open various cupboards and doors, "And not for much else if the contents of her fridge are any indication."

Charley looked over his shoulder at the bottles of vinegar lining the shelves. The two men continued through the house uneasily.

"I think I've found something," Rayflo called from the bathroom.

Charley entered to find a headless body in the bathtub.

"Well, maybe Miss Fang isn't our vampire after all," Rayflo said.

"This tub is full of vinegar," Charley said, bending over the body. "And there's no blood."

"Seriously obsessed with the stuff."

"But the body doesn't show any adverse side effects from having been submerged in it."

"That's the cleanest decapitation I've ever seen," Rayflo pointed at the neck with his cigarette.

Charley leaned closer and stared his infrared scan.

"It's still warm and," he dug his fingers into the opening. "There doesn't appear to be a trachea."

"I feel like I've heard of something like this before," Rayflo said, pulling the body from the bath. "Come on."

"What are you doing?" Charley asked, backing out of the bathroom and looking faintly disconcerted.

"We're going to perform an impromptu autopsy," Rayflo said blandly, placing the body on the kitchen table.

"But, that's a desecration," Charley stated, handing over a butcher knife without thinking.

"Not if she's a vampire," Rayflo answered, slicing a Y incision into her torso. "Go see if she has shears or a saw."

"That's just not right," Rayflo said, after they exposed the chest cavity, empty of lungs or heart.

From outside they heard a long, anguished wail, like a banshee's scream. Instinctively they covered their ears as the front window shattered inward. In flew the disembodied head of Leila Fang, her long black hair wild and unkempt, tangled around her floating organs. Her spinal column withered like a serpent's tail, lashing back and forth as her intestines picked up shards of glass, oozing fecal matter and blood from their bloated links.

"Hello Ms Fang or should I say Ms Fang's head," Rayflo drawled, waving his cigarette to the disembodied head, its entrails writhing below it.

"Are you looking for this?" he indicated the headless corpse on the kitchen table, with its exposed chest cavity.

"No! My body!" she screamed, flying at him.

A cross shaped spear impaled her stomach driving it into the wall and pulling the rest of her with it. Charley pulled the spear downward, slicing through her stomach, blood splattering everywhere.

"Dearly departed," he intoned, slicing upward and tearing through her heart. He detached the spear to stab it through her left eye, the orb exploding.

"Amen."

  
**Epilogue: What the Mouth Said to the Snack**

"So she was a Penanggalan?" Rayflo asked.

"Yes, it's an extremely rare subspecies of Malaysian vampire," Charley said. "There's evidence of her having moved around the west coast murdering for decades. Usually she would live in neighborhoods and prey on children and women post-birth, but came close to getting caught in her last town."

"So she became a nurse and tried to prey on the homeless, prostitutes and runaways to keep a low profile."

"And got too greedy."

"And stupid. What an inconvenient and incredibly unattractive vampire," Rayflo said, running his hand down his own chiseled chest. "So Cherry, how about some celebratory sex?"

"Snacks should be silent," Charley answered. "Though I am a little hungry."

"Go bite a melon!" Rayflo yelled.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to my husband for the beta.


End file.
